Hannah Owens
Assistant Professor in International Relations: Conflict and Security
Email:
Room: S0.42
Advice and Feedback Hours:
In person: Thursdays 09.30-10.30 (S0.42)
Online: Tuesdays 15.30-16.30
Profile
Dr Hannah Owens is an Assistant Professor in International Relations: Conflict and Security in the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick. She is an interdisciplinary scholar working across Security Studies, Critical Migration and Humanitarianism and Geopolitics.
She holds a PhD in Political Science from Queen Mary University of London (2023), an MRes in International Relations from Queen Mary University of London (2019), and an MA in American Studies (International Security) from the University of East Anglia (2016). Hannah holds Fellowship status of Advance HE. Prior to joining PAIS, Hannah worked as a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway University of London and the University of Hertfordshire.
Hannah has published in various academic journals, including Security Dialogue, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Critical Studies on Security and Cambridge Review of International Relations.
Currently, Hannah is working towards her first monograph Living (In)Security: Everyday Politics, Space and Rural Refugees. Hannah’s PhD was nominated for the European International Studies Association (EISA) Best Dissertation Prize and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize.
Research and Impact
Inspired by decolonial, race and gender theory, Hannah’s research explores how migration, ruralisation and social justice shape everyday politics, mobility and security in the Middle East. Through a qualitative multi-methods approach, including ethnography, interviews, policy and discourse analysis, and visual and mobile methods, she researches the role of state and non-state actors, aid organisations and civil society networks, drawing out the identity politics and protection practices of non-camp refugees and rural host communities.
Her current project, Locating the Rural in International Aid Work, focuses on the multidirectional relationship between the labour economy, international aid and rural refugees. It considers how the category of the rural has been excluded in policy, practice and literature on international aid, resulting in an aid policy unable to effectively respond to rural refugee needs. It speaks to the changing nature of migration governance and humanitarian aid, and the potential return of Syrian refugees from Jordan. Hannah’s work has been awarded research funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Council for British Research in the Levant, the British International Studies Association (BISA) and the University of Hertfordshire.
Hannah’s research has a strong impact and public engagement dimension outside the confines of academia, most recently collaborating on the Being Human Festival (2025). This event featured an evening of food, film, and art created by refugees and asylum seekers from across the world. Hannah will continue this work in 2026 with several events during Refugee Week. Hannah continues to work with various NGOs and civil society organisations in Jordan.
In 2022, she was awarded the Queen Mary Research Impact Fund and The Centre for Public Engagement Fund, which supported the completion of a documentary-film detailing the everyday voices of Syrian refugees in response to the UN’s ‘Leave No One Behind’ agenda. Continuing her work with rural communities, Hannah has produced various creative outlets, including film, photography and artwork.
Teaching In 2025-26
Hannah is teaching seminars on the module PO107: Introduction to Politics. Previously, Hannah have taught undergraduate and postgraduate modules on conflict and security; migration, borders and displacement; Middle East politics; International Relations theory; and Sociology.
Hannah is open to supervising undergraduate/postgraduate dissertations or doctoral candidate. She particularly welcomes proposals pertaining to the following areas:
- Migration and borders
- Refugees and displacement
- The humanitarian sector
- NGOs and international organisations
- Critical security studies
- The politics of space and mobility
- Middle East politics
- Decolonisation, specifically in humanitarian aid operations
Publications
Peer-reviewed articles
Owens, Hannah. (2025) A politics of living (in)security: the case for decentring security through ethnographic methods in Vernacular Security Studies. Security Dialogue 56(5): 611-629.
Owens, Hannah. (2024) Channelling (in)security: governing movement and ordinary life in ‘imagined’ geographies. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 52(2): 481-502.
Owens, Hannah, Jaakko Heiskanen, Joseph MacKay, Iver B. Neumann, Einar Wigen, Ingrid Eskild, Martin Hall, Alice Engelhard, Jamie Levin, and Franca Kappes. (2024) Nomads and international relations: post-sedentarist dialogues. Cambridge Review of International Relations 38(2): 190-224.
Owens, Hannah and Polly Pallister-Wilkins. (2024) Sustaining and complicating hierarchies of race and class in humanitarian protection. Critical Studies on Security 13(1): 117-121.
Chapters in edited volumes
Owens, Hannah. ‘Speaking for, speaking with: vernacular research in the Global South’. Included in Vernacular Security Studies: Concepts, Cases and Critiques. Lee Jarvis, Michael Lister and Akinyemi Oyawale (Eds) (2026) Routledge: Interventions.
Owens, Hannah. ‘Protection’. Included in the Routledge Companion to Humanitarian Action. Will Plowright and Nonhlanhla Dube (Eds) (2026) Routledge.
Owens, Hannah. ‘Governing Movement in Displacement: The Case of North Jordan’, in Dignity in Movement: Borders, Bodies and Rights, Jasmin Lilian Diab (Ed) (2021) Bristol: E-International Relations.